Broadband Update – August 30, 2019

Sign-ups for the New Salem Fiber Internet service to begin on Saturday, September 21!!

There will be a Sign-up Launch Event to be held in the cafeteria at the Swift River School at 10:00am on Saturday, September 21…details to follow soon. Please note that it will be necessary for you to have an email address in order to sign up for service.

Completing the New Salem Broadband Project

A Special Town Meeting has been scheduled to consider a proposal submitted by the Broadband Committee, Municipal Light Board, and Municipal Light Plant Manager with the recommendation of the Selectboard and Finance Committee.

Back in 2015 when the Broadband Committee brought a funding proposal to the town, it was based on the state’s projected cost for our town-wide broadband project; unfortunately, their estimate was significantly below true costs. While the funding we have received has taken us through much of the project, our hope now is to get authorization from the town to increase our borrowing capacity to assure there will be sufficient funds to complete the project.

Why now and why so much? Our decision to come back to the town for further assistance was delayed, as we did not have figures for some of our larger expenses until very recently.

At the recommendation of the Finance Committee, we are using a worst-case scenario to determine our borrowing capacity request of $500,000 and thus anticipating that no further requests will be required to complete the project. We expect to borrow less money than we are requesting to be authorized and the unused borrowing capacity will not be a cost to the town.

Special Town Meeting, Monday, September 16 at 7:00pm in the Town Hall Annex